Landfall

The Stars Like Sand

The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry is a well-reviewed 2014 anthology of Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror poetry that I co-edited with P. S. Cottier. You can buy The Stars Like Sand from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle ebook.

Men Briefly Explained

Men Briefly Explained is my 2011 poetry collection that explains men, briefly. You can buy Men Briefly Explained from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle ebook.

My Library from LibraryThing

About Me

I'm a writer, editor, anthologist, and now blogger who was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England and moved to New Zealand with my family when I was 2.
I grew up on the West Coast and in Southland, then went to Dunedin to go to Otago University before moving to Wellington in 1993. I'm married with one child.
I'm juggling the writing of poetry, short fiction and novels, working part time, trying to be a good husband and father, and working hard to get New Zealand to take effective action on climate change - not to mention all the other problems the world faces. Life is busy!

27 September 2016

Harvey Molloy and I are both going to be in Dunedin on 9 October, so we thought, why not hold a joint poetry reading? Our publisher Mākaro Press agreed, Dunedin Public Libraries agreed to host the event, and University Book Shop very kindly agreed to come and sell books - so it's on! Please share this event widely.

A former Dunedinite, Tim Jones maps both land and sea in his new collection, exploring our increasing intimacy with the sea due to climate change. And Wellingtonian Harvey Molloy's collection moves from the Lancashire moors of the poet's childhood to the eco-politics of New Zealand.

Come along to hear these two stimulating poets while they're in Dunedin for an environmental hui, and bring a poem of your own to read.

The University Bookshop has very kindly agreed to handle book sales at the event.

If you can't make it, please share this event with your Dunedin friends.

20 September 2016

My Tuesday Poem this week is "Fey Exchange", by Harvey Molloy, from his wonderful collection Udon by the Remarkables - check the poem out below.

But wait, there's more: Harvey and I will be doing a joint reading in Dunedin on Sunday 9 October, from noon-1.30pm at the Dunningham Room, 4th Floor, Dunedin Public Library. I'll have more details next week, including the poster for the event, but for now you can join the Facebook event here:https://www.facebook.com/events/1848403445380889/

Even if you can't make it, please share this event with your Dunedin and Otago friends!

Fey Exchange

A cornflower
comb in her hair

and a
beetle-wing nose stud

permitted by the
deputy principal

for cultural
reasons.

We are not to
eat her cakes

or listen to her
singing.

Peer mentors
warn the entrant bullies

not to be
deceived by her stature

and to
acceptfull responsibility

for any provoked
translations.

We are not to
teach history

or animal
husbandry.

Paper cranes
build their nests

on the light
above the whiteboard.

Her greatest
delight is mathematics.

Her most
perplexing question:

How can we live in just three-sided space?

All term we
repeat the approved answer:

We know no different.

Until the Monday
we find her gone

back to where
the world’s light and shape are different,

where nouns are
crowned

with capital
letters, and consonants

wear diacritical
vowels

like a dandy
wears a tricorne hat,

and at the
festival of braids

the homecomers
in the harbour towers

light paper
lanterns

the dusty grey
velvet of moth wings,

and place them on
the bay’s slow water

for the faces of
those they remember

back in the
steel canyons of fast time,

where the
rectors embroider shadows

cast by
unspeakable home truths,

and there’s a
series of unfortunate errors

in the academy’s final examination.

Credit note: "Fey Exchange" was published in Udon by the Remarkables (Mākaro Press, 2015) and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publisher and the author.

Tim says: I think Udon by the Remarkables is a wonderful collection, and I am looking forward very much to reading with Harvey in Dunedin. I like the sly way this poem makes good on the pun in the title, while maintaining its mystery.

08 September 2016

Tim says: Christchurch has been through an awful lot since the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes. I don't think Christchurch residents should be deprived of their much-admired heritage of notable trees on top of all that. If you agree, please donate to help save those trees, as Rebekah Lynch outlines below.

My name is
Rebekah Lynch and I
am part of a group of citizens who care about Christchurch's
unique landscape
character, which is defined by its legacy of urban trees. We
really need your
help to support the continued protection of some of
Christchurch's most significant
trees – 80% of which have been proposed for delisting from
Council's register,
which means they can be felled "as of right".

In particular,
we need help to
cover the expert and legal expenses that we have had no choice
but to incur, in
order to speak for the trees through the Court-style Plan
hearings being
fast-tracked under the emergency earthquake legislation.

Why We Need
Your Help

What has made
this process
particularly difficult for ordinary people like ourselves is
that we have had
to go through not one but an unprecedented two hearings, which
effectively
doubled our costs. Our costs were further increased when
Council reneged on a mediated
agreement that would have seen 56% of the listed trees return
to Council's
register.

As you can
imagine, the second
hearing and Council's subsequent action presented an almost
impossible hurdle
for individual submitters and small Trusts to overcome in
order to speak for a
public good – and to have any hope of being heard in a
Court-style process
where outcomes are being determined by expert evidence and
legal submission.

Here are some links
to articles that
chart the Christchurch tree situation and our campaign:

All donations
are tax
deductible and will be receipted. All funds will be used
solely to meet the
expert and legal costs of the tree campaign to date and to
review the Hearing decisions
once they are made.

Social
Media and Spreading the Word

You can also help
by:

linking
directly
to our Give A Little fundraiser on your own social
media pages
and/or your blog or website – simply cut and paste in the Give
a Little link
above; andalso

encouraging
others to do the same by also liking and sharing the link.

We would
deeply appreciate our
cause being shared with other individuals, organisations,
groups, or businesses
that you believe may care about the fate of Christchurch's
Heritage and Notable
trees. We believe this will assist us greatly.

Dad Art is a short, easily read and quickly digested novel, set in a very recognisable contemporary Wellington.... Michael [the protagonist] may be approaching the age at which the best opportunity to catch up with one’s friends is at other friends’ funerals, but he still retains curiosity about the world and a desire to engage with it. I liked Michael, and because I liked Michael, I enjoyed Dad Art.

The stories in Mean are gritty social realism, so I wasn’t sure how much the book would appeal to me. But social realism has gone urban since the days of Coal Flat, and that’s where Mean is located: the underbelly of New Zealand’s towns and cities. So it’s the realism of DJs and remixes, drugs and needles, shit and piss and cum.... Michael Botur knows the mean streets of the big city well, and he writes about them with wit, compassion and insight. That makes Mean a tough but rewarding read.